Monday February 13, 2017

A face-to-face meeting is Trudeau’s best bet for dealing with Trump

Batten down the hatches. All the old Canadian insecurities are about to gust up to hurricane force.

January 11, 2016

A young, inexperienced, left-leaning Canadian prime minister, alone in the Oval Office with a NATO-chomping Republican silverback who will — not — shut — up — about how tough and smart and smart and tough and winning and tough and smart he is.

It’s enough to make you cover your eyes and peek between fingers. The kid’ll get eaten alive. There’ll be nothing but freshly picked-over bones of part-time drama teacher on the grassy floor of the Trump enclosure when it’s done. The Sun headlines write themselves.

There’ll be time for Kevin O’Leary to shout “Bambi vs. Godzilla!” 40 times before Justin Trudeau’s aircraft even leaves the tarmac at Ottawa airport.

Unless things work out differently. They could, you know.

November 12, 2016

Twenty days elapsed between Donald Trump’s inauguration and the announcement, Thursday morning, that Justin Trudeau will spend Monday in Washington. Surely that was plenty of time for the prime minister and his staff to go back and forth a dozen times over whether it’s even a good idea to get into the big guy’s personal space.

Maybe this whole relationship could be managed by telephone. Maybe they could tweet at each other. Maybe surrogates could do the heavy lifting. Harjit Sajjan, the defence minister, has worked with American soldiers. Chrystia Freeland’s been on CNN. Maybe Trump and Trudeau could meet, but just not quickly. Give everything a chance to settle down. What harm could there be?

Those sentiments seem to have put an extra week or two into the delay before Trudeau’s trip. But there are good reasons not to wait longer. (Continued: Paul Wells, Toronto Star)